Dead to Her is Sarah Pinborough’s follow up to her pitch-black perfection of a thriller ‘Behind Her Eyes’. I LOVED that book so much. It was moody and evil and filled with horrible, selfish people doing horrible things to each other. Dead to Her is filled with an equal amount of evil and selfish people too but it took me a long time to warm up to the story because they were all beautiful, wealthy second wives and I was just “eh, who gives a cats bum about these witches and their inner thoughts”. This is where you call me a jerk and I totally agree.

“They were all poison one way or another and maybe she was the only one honest enough to see it.”

But somewhere along the line when the lusty interludes and evil goings-on began, my attention was caught and I couldn’t wait to see the devastation hit them all hard. This is the part where some people might want to tune out but I was there for it. I’m not going to pen a detailed review, this is a lurid thriller and the fun of them should be experienced by the reader and never spoiled beforehand.

This wasn’t a perfect read for me but I enjoyed it once it hooked me and I got over my dislike of the grasping second wife trope. There is a little voodoo, a little passion, a whole helluva lot of betrayal, delectable villains, and some nicely haunting turns of phrase as well as my favorite thing: secrets!

“Even in the sunshine, it seemed ghosts fought for breath.”

I think this book broke my brain.  *LOL*  I picked it up because it had been recommended to me by a very good friend.  It also had a lot of good buzz about it. 

It's a differently structured book.  We get differing first person POVs and flashback scenes/chapters.  It's also written mostly in present tense, I think... At this point, there's so much of that being written that I seldom actually take notice of it. 

At any rate, I was luckily able to avoid all the spoilers about the book, only knowing that there was one helluva twist to it.  And I would say that it's really, really important to do that.  I think the book would be pretty much ruined if you were spoiled.

I hemmed and hawed about my rating (between 3.5 and 4) because while I thoroughly enjoyed my read and was pretty much surprised about the main twist (I had suspicions as the end got nearer and nearer), the mechanics of constructing that twist felt just a wee bit deux ex machina to me?  But maybe that was my expectations? 

And Netflix is making a limited series from the book, so I suggest you read it before watching. :)

Anyway... it was very good.  Read it.  Don't get spoiled.

Task 1:  It’s the annual airing of grievances!  Time to list the top 5 books that disappointed you the most this year and let us know why!

Well, looking at my shelves for the year and the overall ratings, I'm looking at these books and scratching my head as to why I rated them as high as I did.  

My review of Murder in the Museum.  

This one should have been a DNF.  There was so much I disliked about this book.  It was just not a good story, at all.  

Looking back on my review I gave it .5 star each for the cover, the title and the setting of the British Museum.  I probably should have just gave it 1 star since the BM setting didn't last more than 24 pages.

My review of Reading with the Stars: A Celebration of Books and Libraries by Leonard Kniffel.  

A collection of essays by people who were supposed to be stars that weren't (except Julie Andrews and Oprah).  Most of them sounded far more defensive than celebratory and few of them were average at best. 

2 stars.

My review of The Road to Cardinal Valley by Earlene Fowler  

Now this one ... this one I had hopes and expectations for.  The author wrote a fabulous mystery series back in the day with outstanding characters and settings.  But she let me down with this one.  Still great characters and settings, but she yanked them around too much and was far too preachy and churchy to boot.

2 stars.  2 bitter stars.

My review of Poison by Sarah Pinborough  

Oh, how I didn't like this book.  A fairy tale retelling with juvenile prose and adult sex scenes.  I failed to feel the darkness, and cared nothing whatsoever for any of the characters.  This turned out to be a bonus since the story ended without any resolution for anyone.  Except me, who happily tossed it in the big black box to be given away at next opportunity.

1 star for a pretty cover. 

My review of The Haunting of Fox Mill by Phyl Cooke  

Not sure why I gave this 2 stars - it's pretty terrible too.  The writing was bad, the MC was stupid and the plotting was, according to me, "a car crash".

A Ghost story that failed utterly to give me so much as a goosebump.

2 stars.  Why, I do not know.

I think this book takes place in London but I'm not 100% certain so I'll put this in the "Free" space.

Behind Her Eyes by this same author was a five star read for me (and yep, I LOVED that ending) but this one was not. I’m giving it a three and that makes me sad because I was so looking forward to another amazingly nasty little read.

CROSS HER HEART started out great. It’s a story of dark secrets and lies and murder. That kind of thing screams my name but I can’t give it a high rating because I saw most everything coming before it was revealed. I am NOT good at the sleuthing and I am not afraid to admit it. I never figure out the murderer or the twisty twists on any of those mystery shows and I’m even worse with books. So, either my brain is getting better at detection, or this book was a little too heavy handed with the clues. I’m guessing it is the latter but it also could be because the characterization was so well done that many little clues stuck in my forgetful brain.

The story is about a woman named Lisa. Lisa has a dark past she’s desperately trying to keep hidden now that she’s built a respectable new life and is the mother of a 16 year old daughter named Ava. But someone is haunting her and taunting her with tidbits that remind her that this someone knows all of her secrets and may expose her past misdeeds and ruin her life at any moment. The story is told from the point of view of Lisa, her best friend Marilyn and daughter Ava. I loved the three different point of views because we soon realize that all of these ladies have a little darkness in their lives and are very good at secret keeping.

And that’s all I’m giving you. To say more defeats the purpose of reading the book. Lies are eventually revealed, characterization stays intense and there was plenty of crazy to keep my attention but the fact that the plot reveals, the twists, and the murderer were all so obvious and the stalkers motive so weak, I found myself a very disappointed reader by the end of it all.

This one is going into the Free Category.

Bingo Calls:

9/1   Classic Horror

9/3   Cryptozoologist

9/5   Cozy Mystery (not on my card)

9/7   New Release

9/9   Southern Gothic

9/11 Terrifying Women

9/13 A Grimm Tale

9/15 Modern Masters of Horror

9/17 Creepy Carnivals

9/19 Relics and Curiosities

9/21 Diverse Voices

9/23 Murder Most Foul

9/25 Amateur Sleuth

9/27 Genre: Suspense

9/29 Supernatural

10/1 Ghost Stories

10/3 Doomsday

10/5 Shifters

10/7 13 

10/9 Terror in a Small Town (not on my card)

10/11 Darkest London

I've Read These (none called):

Slasher Stories: THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY
Spellbound: BABY TEETH

Read & Called!

Murder Most Foul: BIG LITTLE LIES 

Terrifying Women: THE GRIP OF IT by Jac Jemc

Suspense: PREDATORS by Michael Brent Collings

Supernatural: IN THE MOUTH OF THE DARK

Doomsday: PATIENT ZERO by Jonathan Maberry

Free: CROSS HER HEART by Sarah Pinborough

New Release: WE SOLD OUR SOULS

I'm a firm believer that it's a rare re-telling that's better than the original.

This is not that rare re-telling. 

In general, I'm 'meh' about fairy tales anyway, at least as an adult, though I can't remember any I loved as a kid either.  Even in my innocent youth I lacked romance.  But I needed a fairy tale and this was on the FOTL shelves for a buck and the cover was pretty.

The star is for the pretty cover and for serving its purpose.  Otherwise the writing was juvenile, which is fitting for a fairy tale, but the sex and language were not.  Perhaps the dichotomy is part of the darkness of the re-telling, but it didn't work for me.

But what really didn't work for me was that the story didn't end.  It didn't have a happy ending or a dark ending or a sad ending; it lacked any ending - it just stopped.  No resolution for Snow White, the Woodsman, the elves or the witch.  There's an epilogue, from the POV of a minor character, but it does nothing to offer any kind of closure.  Again, probably part of the whole "dark retelling" but obviously, I'm not the target audience, because it didn't feel all that dark, or all that twisted, or all that wicked.  

By the last page of the book, I felt nothing for any of the characters, which I guess is the best possible outcome since that means I won't waste any time wondering what the hell happened at the end??

I read this for the A Grimm Tale square for Halloween Bingo.